12.1.13 First day of SNOWBOARDING SEASON

It has been a long 10 months that i haven't been able to snowboard but luckily it has been that long since i had actually injured myself the last day of the season. I needed the rest to heal my leg and the first day back it feels great. I spent the day with one of my friends at Liberty Mountain Resort which is only about 55 minutes away from where I live so it is a timely commute. We left our houses at 8:30 am and got there at about 9:30 am ready to snowboard to our hearts content. I had actually expected the terrain to be very slushy and not packed considering it was supposed to be a warm day and the sun was out. It was however a GREAT day out. We spent the bulk of the early morning on getting re acclimated to snowboarding since we haven't done so in a while and most of the day really just riding the lifts.

We started out on Sneaky Pete and Nova for some time because my friend had just got his new gear this year and wanted to test it out.We then headed over to a slightly harder trail called Dipsy Doodle and spent some good times there blasting through the first parts of the trail. After a while that got tiring because of the straight away that they have mid way through the trail where it is almost flat and you spend the bulk of your time straining your back leg to keep yourself from catching a bump or sliding. So instead a few runs after we still took Dipsy Doodle but we transitioned into a shortcut toward Whitneys way which is a Blue trail. We had some fun throughout the high speeds you catch riding these trails. My friend ended up not being able to go many runs because his bindings were slightly loosened so he took a break while i went for my final run. I went through Upper Heavenly and went through Whiteneys Way which was a blast. In the end however i realized my boots were not fitting me well since whenever i try to make turns my heel would move and slowly slide out. So i need to get that fixed ASAP so i can go through the rest of the season comfortably. If you guys haven't ridden before or want to try Liberty their website is http://www.libertymountainresort.com/ and they offer lessons with rentals and a lift ticket for some lifts for only 39 dollars until Christmas rolls around. This offer is also good at the two other ski resorts affiliated with Liberty called WhiteTail and Roundtop. Try to get on the slopes and HAVE FUN

Lucky Day NEW NEW BIKE RACK

I was seemingly just browsing craigslist a couple of days ago and found a new bike rack that fits a small niche of cars that was mine exactly. It was a Nissan Xterra 2000-2004 interior bike rack that fit my 2004 Xterra exactly and works like a dream. I was getting tired of having to work about my bikes when i go to eat after biking and i was still concerned about my bike moving or getting damaged as i put it on my bike rack. There was no security on my bikes as i left it on my car and i felt the bikes were really hampering my trunk and seemed like it would damage the trunk sooner or later. So i decided i would just look at Craigslist for the heck of it and lo and behold i came across a gem in which a dude was selling exactly what i was looking at for a price that seemed to be a scam. He was selling it for only 25 dollars and it seemed a little too good to be true but i ended up just going. What the heck why not? It ended up being a pleasant interaction and the dude sold it to me for only $20 and i was excited to use my rack. I haven't been able to use my interior bike rack since the cold weather and the rain that's been coming through but i hope i can get to use it sometime soon. Here is a picture of the rack and an example.

NEW SNOWBOARD RACK

I looked online for some time now and finally found a snowboard rack that i would like that would fit great for my car. I found the Yakima Big Powderhound online for a very decent price from a seller on eBay and ended up having to piece together a couple of the other accessories/attachments. All in all i think i spent around 70 dollars for everything from just the rack, the mounts, and the locks. This rack was built to hold up to 4 snowboard and 6 pair of skis and it seems like a great fit for me and my friends. This solves the problem of having to put the equipment inside and leaving no space for additional people. So now i can fully keep 5 people in my car while having my gear securely fastened to the roof of my car. Here's a picture of the snowboard rack itself:

The snowboard rack was actually in very good condition and worked flawlessly once i tried it on. They are available online with everything together for about $125 and is a great deal considering the time i spent peiceing my set together and it was an used snowboard rack for $40. Heres a link to the whole set:Yakima Big Powderhound

Another Addition to my Gear for the 2014 Winter Season

After last seasons snowboarding i felt i needed a little something to feel a bit safer after taking a pretty bad fall at the end of the season last year. I ended up getting a helmet this season and hope to put it to good use this year riding some blue terrain and maybe some park this year. I think i want to master being able to control myself and keeping high speeds up as i ride. I am way too safe and reserved as i snowboard when i feel sketchy about some things i just stop or try to stop and just fall and slide. I try not to take too much of a risk because you really do catch a lot of speed while boarding and sometimes it becomes unstable. I shopped around a great deal but ended up finding a great helmet for my season and it was a decent price. I decided to buy the RED HiFi helmet and the aesthetics so far seem great but i hope to take it out for the season. Well heres to my new addition and hope for a great season. Heres a link to the helmet: Red HiFi Helmet

Snowboard Gear for the Season

I used most of this last season and it has been doing me well. I haven't had to replace anything and i haven't been dissatisfied at all from anything. This includes my whole set up and i got everything new at a very comparable price. Links to my boarding set up are below. I cant wait for the season to come up and i hope you guys could also get the chance to go out to a ski resort even for just one day and at least once in your life.

K2 Brigade

K2 Indy Bindings

K2 Haymaker

Seneca Trail Near my House

It has been well over a year since I've biked on this trail but i have however run on this trail for a while now. Riding here was a whole new terrain because it wasn't built exactly for mountain biking but more for a hiking or running trail. This trail was built with lots of ups and downs and it really made a different impact unlike Schaeffer Farms where it is built more explicitly as a mountain biking trail. It wasn't as fun because getting up these hills were verrrryyy long so i ended up walking a lot of the up hills. The downhills although were very fun and made it still enjoyable. These trails went through the forest behind houses near my neighborhood and was less crowded so it made the riding a lot more peaceful

New Side of Mountain Biking

I decided to try and take the mountain bike trail today going the opposite way and taking new sections of the the trail. When you change it up that little it changes the whole trail and make everything new to you. It makes the terrain unknown and lets you explore the trail in a whole new way. This time i found an area like the expert trail yet it was hidden on the side on the trail. Even though i had biked for a few months i still had not explored the full area of the trails. And so i went through a different side where I've never been and came across something quite cool. I have a picture i took below.

It was just something cool that even though i have ridden through multiple sections of the trails but i stil have not discovered the plethora of different trails.It was a great change and i know there were sections of the trail where the corn that had once been all over was cut there were still sections where it is still green around even though it was starting to get very cold. Overall it was a great day out just exploring new areas.

10/12 Riding Some EXPERTT TERRAIN

I'm sorry that i haven't been able to update right after i have ridden I am dead after riding and once i get home i end um just sitting around and doing work for school. Again we go to Schaeffer but we haven't even explored the whole trail completely yet. The terrain at Schaeffer is really nice but there is one section that really takes the cake with mountain biking. There is a mountain biking course half way through the trails and it lets you go down insane pits and come back up hills and continue through what must be at least 10 dips in the ground. You have to maneuver your way through this little park and you could actually catch air if you end up getting enough speed. Some of these drops however really go near a 90 degree decline which is insane. This day i didn't spend long on the trail because it was supposed to rain but i spent a little time riding through this section of the Scaeffer trails. All the pictures below are from different sections of the (expert terrain) but honestly i would only worry about having a decent bike so you don't break anything.

10.15.13 New Used Bike rack

I decided it was about time i switch from just throwing my bike into my my car to strapping it down on a bike rack that would hold my bike on the trunk. I was tired of tracking mud and dirt from the trails into my car. This made me get a tarp that i kept inside my car for whenever i biked but i did not like loading and unloading one bit. I also felt that the bike was being slightly damaged since it was laying down in my car but i was also hitting bumps so i felt it wouldn't do well for my bike. I researched far and wide for an appropriate bike rack for my car and came across many that would fit my car. I looked at roof racks that would hold my bike but i felt that after riding i wouldn't want to lift a 30 pound bike over my head to attach to the roof rack. So trunk racks were my best option because i didn't have the money to buy a hitch to also get a hitch mount. I looked at reputable brands of bike racks from Thule to Yakima to another brand called Saris. Waiting on days end looking for when a deal would pop up on craigslist i eventually found one that i felt was a GREAT price and decent in condition. I found a Saris Bones 2 bike rack online (pictured below) and it was only 25 bucks unlike the $125 retail price. A link to the item is also available here Saris Bones 2 Bike

I had originally wanted a 3 bike rack so it would be more stable with two bikes but i couldn't pass up the deal of this bike rack. This bike worked for me greatly whenever i was riding alone or was driving with the bike alone. When i tried two bikes it didn't do as well it may just have been that two mountain bikes didn't fare well enough for it since they are quite heavy. I felt that the bike rack didn't hold my bikes as well and wasn't too sure how safe it would be to go over bumps and such with the bikes strapped on the back. I recommend people who ride regular road bikes or hybrid type bikes to get a trunk rack because with light weight bikes the trunk racks perform on a whole level higher than with heavier bikes. There are plenty of types of bikes out there and i recommend people going to check them out in stores or just shop around online there are tons of them available and for all types of cars.

NEW BIKE Nishiki Wasatch and testing the bike out

This is from a week  back but I received my bike on the day of my birthday and as excited as i was i still had to wait because i had to take the bike into dicks sporting goods to get it built. They didn't take long but still i left to go grab some lunch with friends and once done we headed back to Dicks. We got there and there didn't seem to be any problems with the bike and I was good to go to ride on the trails. I head to Schaeffer farms with my friend Steven and we are all prepped to go

Where I got my Nishiki Wasatch

We start riding and half way through the trails we end up seeing this little guy on the trail and ended up stopping to try to move it out of the trail path but it is already injured. We end up scooting it to the side out of the trail but not before i snapped a photo. We head on out and ride.

We hit this path where it goes down a long way and you catch alot of speed and go back up. There was a photo i posted a week back and the corn is completely gone from the fields and now and makes it look emptier. Riding through the trails we finish and home we go.

A little more than a week ago I spent my day with my friends at a bouncy house. Not your average bouncy house like a kids party but a building with an array of square shaped trampolines. Trampolines from the ground and diagonal trampolines from the side of the wall so you could bounce. We ended up going to SkyZone in Columbia, MD because it was the closest around. They offer jump times where it allows you to do whatever you'd like for a set amount of time but this time my friends and i spent only an hour bouncing around. Once you've paid you will be given these SkyZone socks which seem like regular socks but a very rubbery pieces on the bottom soles of the socks. Like pictured below.

This was one of the most fun things i have done in some time but it was very surprising how tired I would get from just jumping for a couple of minutes. There were areas where you could play dodge ball, basket ball hoops that were almost 15 feet tall, a foam pit, and just a overall jumping area. Its crazy to imagine how hard it was to stay actively jumping while still trying to keep balance as this was my first time jumping on large trampolines that can propel you a lengthy height.

09/22/13 Schaeffer Farms

Couple days back i spent some time going through different sections of the mountain bike trails at Schaeffer Farms in Germantown Maryland. This place is amazing and it includes things like a mountain bike park where there are quick drops and hills to hop. Too bad it had rained the day before so we couldnt enjoy the trails to the fullest with it being wet and close to sundown. We did try to get the most of it and rode through a smaller section of the trails. The trails at Schaeffer Farms connects to two other local area trails and extends quite far. The scenery around the area was amazing and the pictures i took turned out great especially with the time of day we went. If people are interesting in going to Schaeffer farms i would say that it would be VERY recommended to have a mountain bike specifically because this train is no bike in the park. There is plenty of very large roots, rocks, tons of hills, and you'll need every ounce of traction you can get from your bike. If you have a mountain bike and would like to try I believe the trails aren't all too hard as long as you go your own pace because there are nice down hills but there are also plenty of uphills that you can walk or attempt to ride. Below are some pictures I took along the way.

Above is a picture of a single track trail which is in between corn fields and is a very nice downhill
Below is another picture but from the other side of this section of the trail

 Below is the bike park where there are many hills to jump and steep hills to catch speed

Day 1: Working Out and Adventures looking for a Bike

Day 1: Working Out and Adventures looking for a Bike

This day was spent going to the gym trying to stay fit as the incoming winter is coming where gym visits are less frequent as the cold weather start rolling in. Today was like any other typical gym day with a rotation of different days working different body parts. I spent the time at the gym today working back and biceps but only for a little over an hour. The gym i go to is pretty nice considering it only opened a couple of months ago but i have liked it and been there since. Back and bicep day mainly consisted of lots of types of row machines, lat pull downs, pull ups, and miscellaneous things like dead lifts. Some exercises I always incorporate into my workouts usually consist of one of these four workouts such as the bench press, dead lifts, squats, and pull ups. There are many variations and these four exercises help build the most amount of muscle and burn tons of fat and calories. This all had been upended however because i needed to meet up with one of my friends to drop by some local bike shops to check out things for his bike and me for a potential bike.

Ever since i have started biking i have been relying on my friends bikes and it would seem now is about the right time to look into one for myself. My friends and I spend alot of our time on weekends and during our spare time doing outdoor activities whenever possible. I run and bike outside and whenever we get the chance we all head out to mountain biking trails and bike. During the winter seasons we also spend our time snowboarding the local ski resorts that are only an hour away. I spent the day looking at bikes ranging from $300 up to bikes around $600 which would be a decent budget but it would seem i would end up getting a bike around the $500 range. Bikes that are of quality seems to cost a pretty penny and for me its a hard decision to make. Just looking at the wide variety of two shops near my area showed me the types of bikes I would want and gave me the opportunity if I wanted to test out the bikes even before i purchase one. Just browsing gave me an idea of the benefits of the shops also with the one shop called Germantown Cycles offering lifetime tune ups and support if you buy a bicycle there. My day ended up with me not being able to commit to buying a bike but I'm still looking and hopefully I will find the bike that I can take wherever with me.